The other trackers, and where mine loses.
You're going to compare this with Huckleberry anyway. Here's the comparison I'd give a friend, including the parts where I'd tell them to buy something else.
Checked in September 2026. Prices move and features arrive, so treat every figure here as the day it was written. Each app publishes its own, in its own currency, and I haven't converted them.
The short version
They all log a nappy, and have done well for a decade. Baby Brain is the private, deliberately small one: free on one phone, no account, entries encrypted on your phone so what reaches my server is noise. The £2 is for putting that log on a second phone, which is the only part that costs me anything.
The cost is real: one child, no App Store, and it will never tell you when the next nap should be. Want sleep advice, twins, or a baby book? One of the others is the better buy, and I'd rather say so here than take your £2 first.
Side by side
| App | What it costs | Account | They can read it | Getting it out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baby Brain | Free, then £2 once | None | No | One tap, a file |
| Huckleberry | Free, then $10 to $15 a month | Yes | CSV by email link | |
| Nara Baby | Free, no ads | Yes | CSV in the app | |
| Vaava | Free, then about €15 once | No, on the paid tier | CSV in the app | |
| Talli Baby | A button, then about $4 a month | Yes | CSV, paid tier only | |
| A free ad-supported tracker | Free, and you are the product | Yes | Varies, often paid |
"They can read it" is an assumption, not an accusation. Unless an app says end-to-end encrypted, what it stores is readable by the company storing it. That's what the cloud means, and most of them say so in a policy nobody opens.
Against Huckleberry
Huckleberry is what most people mean by baby tracker, and it's good. More than one child, free sync across carers, pumping, potty training. The sleep predictions are why people pay: it reads your baby's day and says when the next nap wants to be.
Where it wins. Sleep predictions, several children, a native app, and staff who answer at the weekend.
Where Baby Brain wins. Its subscription costs more every month than mine costs ever. No account, nothing to cancel, and I can't read a single entry.
Against the free ones
Nara Baby is free, has no ads, holds more than one child, and syncs between carers at no cost, which is the one thing here I charge for. On features per pound it beats everything on this page, mine included. The catch is the ordinary one: an account, their servers, and a company that needs to make money eventually.
The ad-supported ones are a different deal. The app is free because your attention is being sold, and the price of a 4am feed is a banner underneath it.
Where they win. More children, an App Store install, and free syncing where mine wants £2. Where Baby Brain wins. No account to make, no ads ever, and nobody at the other end who could read your baby's log if a lawyer asked.
Against the other private ones
Other people have built trackers this way too, and a page claiming otherwise hasn't looked. Vaava sells a one-off unlock at €15 or so for encrypted sharing. Others keep everything on one device and never sync, which is no use to a house with two phones in it.
Where they win. Vaava is a real App Store app with more in it. Where Baby Brain wins. £2 rather than €15, and no account even for the encrypted sync. Nothing to sign into, so nothing to be locked out of.
These are the closest thing Baby Brain has to a rival. If one suits you better, good.
Against a button on the wall
Talli Baby is a physical button you stick by the cot and press. No unlock, no finding the app, no light in your face. About $4 a month for the fuller version.
Where it wins. Nothing on a touchscreen beats a button you can hit in the dark without looking.
Where Baby Brain wins. Nothing to buy, nothing to charge, and it comes to the health visitor with you.
Against a note on the fridge
The real competition, and better than people give it credit for. Paper never runs out of battery, and never updates itself at 3am.
It falls over in one place. At 4am, upstairs, with a baby in one arm, the note is downstairs and so is the answer. That gap is the entire reason this app exists.
Getting your data out
Almost all of them export, so this isn't a reason to pick Baby Brain and I won't pretend otherwise. Two things separate them once you look past whether there's an export at all.
- Whether it costs, and whether it goes through them. Talli Baby puts export behind its subscription, so leaving costs money. Huckleberry emails a link good for 24 hours, so your own log needs their servers up. Baby Brain writes the file on the phone, which still works on the day I stop running the relay.
- What they keep afterwards. Exporting gives you a copy, not theirs, and that's true of every app here including mine. The difference is what the copy is: encrypted noise that deletes itself 30 days after it arrives. What my server actually holds
Nothing in it wants your attention
Every other app here needs something from you after the install: a subscription to keep, an ad to show you, a number somebody reports on at month end. Baby Brain took £2 once and has no further interest.
- There is no analytics in it. None, rather than a little. No analytics library, no crash reporter, no attribution kit. Nowhere in the app for it to go.
- No notifications, no streaks, nothing asking you back. The only thing that will ever buzz at you is a timer you started yourself.
Where Baby Brain loses
Not weaknesses framed as strengths. These are reasons to buy something else, and I'm not planning to remove them.
- One child, full stop. No twins, and no toddler logged alongside a newborn. Every other app here does this and mine doesn't.
- No sleep predictions and no advice. It writes down what you tell it, and that's the end of its involvement.
- Not in the App Store. No widget, no watch face, no Siri, no lock screen shortcut. What it buys you: adding a grandmother is a link and a code.
- No pumping, no photos, no baby book. Nappies, bottles, breastfeeds, sleep, medicine, weight, temperature, milestones, food. Short on purpose.
- No percentiles or growth charts. Totals for the health visitor, and nothing plotting your baby against other people's.
- Lose the code and every phone, and it's gone. No reset, because there's no account and I never had the key. Apps with a login can email you a way back in. A genuine advantage of theirs.
- It's one person in Edinburgh. No support team, no roadmap, no funding. You get a reply, but a company with staff is a company with staff.
Which one you should get
- Twins, or two children at once. Not this. Huckleberry or Nara Baby, and no hard feelings.
- Sleep is the problem. Huckleberry. The predictions are what you're paying for.
- Free, and you want the most features for it. Nara Baby. Read the policy before you put a name in it.
- Free, and you'd rather not hand over a name at all. This one, on one phone, for as long as you like.
- Two phones, one baby, kept private. That's this one. £2, no account, code stays on your phones.
Free on one phone. £2 for the rest of them.
If the list above talked you out of it, that was the point of writing it. If it didn't, the free half costs you nothing to find out.